


Smooth, Like Water

by melonbug



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Hallucinogenic Tripping, Humor, It's more like LSD to be honest, M/M, No Homo Make Outs, Romance, Shiro is a buzzkill, Underage Drinking, Weird Alien Alcohol, passing sexual reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 08:18:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10737774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbug/pseuds/melonbug
Summary: Just two rivals, locking lips, as rivals do. #NoHomoThis is a fill for a prompt on the VLD Kinkmeme:Basically Lance really wants to make out with Keith, but also wants to pretend he's not into guys and especially not into Keith so he keeps coming up with convoluted reasons for them to make out and Keith is down for it until it escalates.





	Smooth, Like Water

**Author's Note:**

> Huge, huge, HUGE thank you to my partner in crime, my better half, and the encourager of my poor moral compass [oldmythologies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldmythologies) for being my fantastic beta reader.

The first time it happened was innocent enough, if you could call a near death experience innocent.

So it was innocent.  _ Enough _ .

They were on a water planet, a water planet full of hot mermaids. They were all set up on an outcrop in the middle of an endless ocean, and the mermaids were scattered about throughout the water. The Queen herself sat on land, tail in the water, talking with Shiro and Allura. Diplomacy, Allura had said, but both she and Shiro were sitting beside her, their bare feet in the cool water, and even they knew this was the closest to a vacation as anything they’d had in ages.

So it was nice and relaxing. Lance left the ‘diplomacy’ to Allura and Shiro and was in the water with the mermaids, feet splayed out to touch the jagged slope of rock beneath the lapping waves where the outcropping faded gently into a beach. The water here was slick and smooth, and felt hardly there other than the cool caress of it across his skin. Pidge had given a complicated explanation about the chemical composition of the water and the mineral content but he had tuned it out the moment he stopped understanding.

Pidge was now out in the water, talking animatedly with one of the mermaids, and Hunk was somewhere on land, feet dipped into the water the way Allura and Shiro’s were. Keith was  _ somewhere _ .

And Lance was surrounded by mermaids and it was  _ amazing _ . They made heart eyes at him and touched his skin, wide eyed, and his face and his hair, marvelling at him. He told them, with only a little hyperbole, about his exploits as a defender of the universe and they hung on every word as he did a dramatic reenactment for them.

He was so distracted he almost didn’t see Keith disappear beneath the water. Not in a ‘diving into the water sort of way’ but more in a yank, one second he’s there and the next he’s  _ not _ .

Lance reeled back from the mermaids, hesitant and anxious, and then he was moving before they could realize why.

Because, oh, _ shit _ , of course a planet of hot mermaids was too good to be true.

Lance dove into the water, lunging away from the mermaids as they reached for him, their touches now aggressive. He’d always had a strong connection to the water. He’d grown up on a beach and he was a good swimmer. But mermaids were  _ better  _ swimmers.

He managed to evade their grasps as he kicked downwards. His only saving grace was that he’d had his bayard out when Keith went under. He’d been showing it off. Now he twisted in the water to shoot back at them and they scattered and he kept going, kicking hard to where Keith was desperately struggling against the mermaid who’d snatched him downward.

By the time Lance broke him free he wasn’t moving and Lance’s lungs were burning and he kicked up to the surface, firing away at mermaids all the while. He broke the surface, gasping, and there was all hell breaking loose. Shiro was shouting orders and Allura was slamming the side of her staff into the mermaids who dared to drag themselves onto the embankment and towards them.

Shiro turned and locked eyes with Lance, where he was struggling to keep himself and Keith afloat  _ and _ fight off killer mermaids. It was a mad scramble of limbs and splashes and shots from his bayard. Shiro directed Hunk their way and he fired across the water, sending the mermaids screeching and ducking under the water. It gave Lance enough time to drag both he and Keith ashore.

Lance didn’t pay attention to anything other than Keith. Keith, who wasn’t breathing. He dropped his hands hard onto Keith’s chest, compressing, performing CPR. Lance had been a lifeguard for like, three consecutive summers, and he had the process down to a T. Keith finally spluttered up water maybe only two seconds after Lance’s lips brushed his own, and then he jerked upright, coughing and choking and gasping down lungfuls of air. Lance guided him through it, helping keep him upright, and Keith met his eyes with watery ones.

The relief that fluttered through Lance’s chest at Keith  _ not being dead _ caught his heart in his chest and his breath in his throat. It was a new feeling, to have Keith cradled in his arms, to have had him at the brink of death and then thankfully, miraculously, have brought him back.

He didn’t have time to process the feeling, because they were still being attacked and there were two Lions between the six of them and one of them was Blue.

Mermaid planet ended up sucking, but they saved the day in the end because evil mermaids ended up being evil,  _ mind controlled _ mermaids.

 

 

Lance thought about Keith too much in the following weeks. That warm feeling returned every time he locked eyes with him, but he refused to let the epiphany of  _ why _ come to him and instead kept it pushed to the far corner of his mind.

It put him on edge and so Lance lashed out, as he always did, to help swallow the feeling down. It also helped keep Lance from thinking too much about the pout of Keith’s lips or the way they had looked gasping, the feel of his warm body against his own.

 

 

Diplomacy take two went much better. They were on a planet of tall, beautiful, blue aliens who walked about with a kind of grace that was indescribable, their forms humanoid but their spirits something else entirely. It made Lance breathless.

They were romantics, all of them, with wild eyes and beautiful, happy sighs. They traded soft kisses with one another like it was currency and they smiled with a charm that made Lance weak in the knees. Their conversations were flattery and flirty and Allura was all ablush where she stood with one of their leaders in the middle of the grand ballroom they’d been set up in.

Lance, of course, was too distracted by Keith too appreciate any of it. It was all he could do to take his eyes off of him, dressed as he was in the Altean garb that Allura had forced them all into, given the occasion; Diplomacy take two was an elegant gala, hosting by those beautiful blue aliens.

Lance slinked over, stepping around two of the aliens who were practically attached at the hips, trading secret kissed between the words they were speaking to each other. It would have been cute except they, and none of the aliens, wore much in the way of clothing. Even Lance had to blush at that.

“ _ Hey _ ,” he whispered to Keith, settling up against the wall next to him. Keith had adopted his brooding stance there. “I need you to, uhh—” He dropped his voice an octave, leaning in close to Keith. “I need you to kiss me real quick.”

Keith jerked away from the wall, arms dropped to his sides. There went the brooding stance. “ _ What _ ?” He hissed, eyes flickering to where Allura stood, her hands in the hands of one of the aliens. The two of them were well enough tucked into the shadows. She didn’t so much as notice them, caught up in it all as she was. “This—” Keith rolled his eyes. “This hardly seems the  _ place _ , Lance.” He didn’t sound angry, so much as he sounded confused.

From where Lance stood he could see a couple— no, there were  _ three _ of them— touching each other with their slender limbs in slow, exaggerated movements. Shit, this was  _ exactly _ the place for this. “They, uhh— Okay so, they saw us bickering, right?  _ As we do _ ,” Lance explained. “So they saw us,  _ right? _ And they sorta think we hate each other now. And you can see how they  _ are. _ ”

Keith was dense enough that it wouldn’t have surprised Lance if he hadn’t noticed in the least. He snorted, though, and directed his gaze from the threesome across the way. Okay, so he had noticed.

“ _ Okay _ , but listen, I was trying to diffuse the situation, right, because ‘diplomacy,’ and I might have made them think we were together. Like, _ together  _ together _. _ ”

Keith considered him for a long moment and Lance couldn't tell if he believed it or not. Better to power on through anyways. "So, they probably need us to prove it, right, I mean, look at them." Keith did. "So we need to kiss. Because diplomacy."

There. It was a foolproof excuse.

Keith’s eyes were again on the couple—The  _ threeple? _ The  _ triad? _ What did you even call that? His lips quirked into a dangerous smile and his face flushed. “Okay,” he said.

“I— What, really?”

“Sure.” Keith caught him by the collar of his fancy altean tunic and pulled him close, until their bodies were just shy of flush. He didn’t kiss him right away, though, but instead made eye contact Lance thought he would have to kiss him first. But that wasn’t how he was playing the game.  _ Keith _ had to kiss him  _ first _ . “Diplomacy, right?” Keith murmured, breath ghosting across his lips. Lance gulped, face flushing, and  _ then _ Keith kissed him.

It was intense, so much more than the only time their lips had so far touched, outside of the dreams Lance refused to think about. He was warm and he kissed like fire, lips soft but firm. Lance melted against him, opening himself to it, returning the kiss as fiercely as Keith gave it to him.

It went on for too long, far past the point of proving to some aliens that they were 'together together.' It went on long enough for Keith to move them until Lance was pinned to the wall, mewling into the kiss, his whole body flushed.

Then it stopped abruptly.

Lance frowned, startled, and followed Keith's eyes to where Shiro was standing nearby, giving them a look. Well that was a mood killer if ever there was one. Lance cleared his throat, looking awkwardly between the two of them. "So, yeah, I think that was enough. To uhh, prove to the aliens what I said, okay, bye, I'm  _ out. _ "

He didn't face Keith again for days.

  
  


They were in a space mall and bad luck had left Lance on the buddy system, as Shiro had called it, with Keith of all people, and Lance was grouchy because Keith was being secretive and ridiculous and wasn’t taking the bait every time Lance tried to pick a fight. It was all around not fun and all around  _ not _ helping to distract Lance from Keith’s lips.

“What’s so important about your stupid dagger,  _ anyway _ ?” Lance asked, and Keith went stiff, hand coming up to curl around the knife where it was not so subtly hidden beneath his jacket. Lance snorted. “I’m not an idiot, Keith. I saw you talking to that knife guy back there, when you thought I wasn’t looking.”

Keith made a face at him and by all rights it was a sneer of annoyance; something about the way he twisted his lips made Lance’s heart skip a beat. He swallowed thickly, feeling flush.

“I need you to kiss me,” Lance blurted out, eyes on those lips. They were all he could stare at and all he could think about. They filled his dreams at night, the ones where he woke hot and flushed and he slapped a female face onto the fantasy so he could get through the inevitable post-sex-dream jerkoff without acknowledging that it was about Keith, that it had been  _ Keith’s _ lips against his own.

“Okay,” he responded, tongue darting out to wet his lips. Lance swallowed a groan, the gears in his mind going in overdrive because it couldn’t be that easy. He had to have a  _ good excuse _ to kiss Keith, he couldn’t just  _ do it. _ He had thought Keith would press him for an excuse, at the very least, and Lance’s eyes darted around, seeking one out.

“There are, ummm,” Lance flushed. “Oh, there are Galra!” He gestured wildly. “Back there, behind you.” Keith frowned and turned to look but Lance caught him by his wrist, stopping him. “Don’t  _ look _ ,” Lance whispered, trying to keep a straight face. There definitely weren’t Galra behind them. “They’re— They’re probably agents of Zarkon. They might recognize us, you know?” Keith nodded slowly, scrunching up his eyebrows. “So we need to be, uhh,  _ incognito _ .”

“Okay,” Keith said again.

Lance, in his urgency to do it before Keith realized there weren’t maybe Galra hanging out behind him, kissed Keith first. He guided them both back into an alcove and caught Keith’s lips in his own and Keith made a stifled noise that was  _ definitely _ a good one. Lance swallowed down his own moan. Keith’s lips were soft and pliable, the way they always were in Lance’s dreams, the way they had been the  _ last _ time Keith had kissed him. Lance leaned in close and worked his tongue into his Keith’s mouth and Keith brought a hand up to curl it into Lance’s hair and—

Lance jerked away, because quite suddenly it had become  _ too _ real. He felt faint, hands clammy, arousal coiling tight in his stomach. He snatched his hands away like they’d caught fire where they were buried in the front of Keith’s shirt. 

“They’re uhhh—” Lance licked his lips, looking away from Keith. Keith, though, was looking at him from where Lance had backed him up against the wall. “I think they’re gone now.”

Keith frowned. “The Galra?”

“Oh! Yeah, the Galra.”

Keith looked over Lance’s shoulder and shrugged. “Okay,” he said.

  
  


It was diplomacy take three on a planet of large, brawling creatures who were barely humanoid. Lance felt lucky and so he whispered to Keith, in a darkened corner, “They kiss, you know, to prove their rivalry,” and Keith didn’t bother to hide his smirk. 

“Funny,” he returned, crowding into Lance’s space, backing him into a wall. “Since we’re rivals and all.”

“Yeah,” Lance breathed back, face flushed. He could no longer had the processing power to form coherent thought, and so he weakly echoed, “We’re rivals, and all.”

Keith kissed him against the wall, and he murmured between the desperate kissing, “Let me show them how much I can’t stand you.”

  
  


It was Hunk’s fault. Maybe the others were surprised by it, but Lance wasn’t. He’d known Hunk a long time and Hunk was full of mischievous surprises beneath his kindly, innocent exterior.

“What is  _ that _ ?” Pidge asked, eyeing the large bottle sitting on the table in front of them. They were all in the common room, minus Shiro because, as Keith had put it, “Shiro can be a bit of a stick in the mud.” They weren’t in the common room to hangout.

They were there to get wrecked.

Hunk gave them all a conspiratorial grin and snatched up the bottle, passing it back and forth between his hands. The contents were iridescent and pink and they shimmered about as the bottle moved. The scrawl on the label was delicate, reminiscent of a vintage wine.It was vintage, maybe, but Lance was fairly certain it wasn’t wine.

“This,” Hunk declared, quieting the room with the excitement in his voice. “Is a gift. From Coran.”

“No  _ way _ ,” Lance choked out, leaning forward, making grabby hands for the bottle. Hunk passed it over to Keith and he huffed out a breath. “I thought this was—”

Hunk grinned and Lance’s words ground to a halt, eyes going wide. “It  _ is _ ,” Hunk said. “Coran said, and I quote, ‘I was a young lad once, too.’ He gave it to me after our last space mall outing.”

“Huh,” Keith said, turning the bottle around in his hands. He tilted it sideways and the contents shimmered violently. “So this is alcohol?”

“ _ Alien _ alcohol,” Pidge exclaimed, pushing herself off the sofa. She pulled the bottle away from Keith and dropped onto the sofa above where Hunk sat on the floor.

Hunk grinned wider. "Better. Coran said it's safe, but it is one hundred percent guaranteed to—"

"Fuck us up?" Lance supplied. He couldn't quite imagine Coran using those exact words, but they seemed fairly accurate.

“But it’ll get us drunk,  _ right _ ?” Pidge asked. She held the bottle in front of her face, entranced by the dancing shimmers.

Hunk shrugged. "I don't know, I guess we'll have to find out? His only warning was that we should take it easy."

“Wait,” Keith cut in, reaching for the bottle. Pidge pulled it out of his reach, giving him a look. “We need to be alert, in case we get attacked or—”

Lance rolled his eyes. “You’re more of a stick in the mud than  _ Shiro _ is, Keith. It’ll be fine.”

Pidge grinned. It bordered on dangerous. She was already fumbling with the neck of the bottle and the strange cap there. "I can, in fact, confirm that we should be fine. When we pilot the Lions, they connect to us mentally." She gestured to her temple, wedging the bottle between her legs to better brace it as she fumbled. "Have you ever noticed how, even if we're so tired we can barely think, we're always somehow at peak efficiency when piloting?"

Lance frowned. He hadn't actually noticed.

"The mental connection fills in the gaps, so to speak."

"So we should be fine, Keith," Lance shot to him, smirking.  
Keith shrugged. "Okay then, let's get 'fucked up." The words were foreign from his mouth and Lance snorted.

Pidge popped the cap and steam as shimmery as the liquid burst forth.

"Hold on, Pidge," Hunk said, plucking the bottle from her before she could take a sip. She glared at him. "You're not even old enough to drink."

"I'm 16," she snapped, shoulders sagging in annoyance. "I'm old enough to pilot a giant Lion in an intergalactic war, aren't I? Besides, there’s no drinking age in space, Hunk. It’s _space_. And Coran said it was safe.”  
Hunk thought about it and Lance could see the gears turning behind his eyes as he studied the body in his hand. "Fair enough, I'll let you have the honors of the first sip, then."

She snatched it up and took a huge swig. The bottle was large and she had to use two hands to lift it. When she finished her eyes were wide and wild. “Oh!” she said. Her voice had a sharp pitch to it. Hunk pulled it from her hands.

"Oooh," Lance exclaimed, gesturing wildly. "Me next, me next."

Hunk handed it over and he took a huge sip and suddenly understood the slack jawed look on Pidge's face. It was sweet and bubbly, like soda, and it was the opposite of the burn of alcohol; Ice rolled down his throat, settling deep in his stomach, raising goosebumps across his skin. He rolled his eyes around the room and it sparkled and shimmered the way the liquid in the bottle did. “Huh,” he said.

Hunk had to pull it from his hands as well.

Time staggered and every time Lance blinked the room changed. By now both Keith and Hunk had the same giddy looks and Lance blinked, confused, because it had felt as if only a second had passed. The bottle found its way into his hands again. He took a much bigger swallow this time. That did it.

The world tilted and spun. Not in the way alcohol made the world spin, all sharp and jerky and dizzying; This was soft, like the world rolled gently with him caught in the middle, as if he were the eye of a storm and the world was the slow twirl of the storm. Colors that Lance was pretty sure didn’t exist in the real world danced before his eyes, fluttering around him, drifting to the floor like flower petals.

Hunk, where he sat on the floor nearby, shone like a sun breaching the crevice of a cave.

"Heyyy, Lance," he whispered. His voice was like dripping copper. He could see the sound leaving him, dancing through the air like sparks across a wire, until they met Lance's hand where he held it out to catch them. "Lance, you're so beautiful."

Lance looked down at his hands, Hunk’s words tumbling between his fingertips, and his hands were blue. They sparkled like the morning sun on the ocean. Oh! He had grown up near an ocean.  _ Nice! _ He shook his hands and drops of water flew from them and became ice in the air falling softly to the ground, tinkling where they landed. "I am so beautiful," he agreed. His voice was a waterfall of rain from his lips.

Pidge had toppled over and was laying across the sofa on her back, hands stretched up, reaching towards the ceiling. She was a growth of tangled vines, green, burying themselves onto the cushions of the sofa, taking root there. Her reaching hands were tendrils of vines, her skin green with moss and vegetation. Leaves fluttered from the golden halo of her hair and she looked Lance's way for a brief moment. Her eyes were polished stones and they leaked tears as blue and beautiful as the water rolling from Lance's skin. "I'm so happy," she murmured. Her hands stayed where they were, vines flicking lazily through the air. "I've never been so alive."

Lance nodded, smiling. Then he rolled his head the other way and holy fuck there was Keith.

He was  _ fire. _

He was fire, his eyes coals pulled from deep within the earth, his teeth, when he smiled, were shards of earth. His hair was wild, spilling all over, bits of fire dancing from the edges and sending embers into the air. His skin was lava, shimmering and warping. Lance had seen a volcano once, in its throes of death, the lava cooling slowly into black. It looked like Keith, sparks of life bleeding out into smoldering embers at the tips, his fingertips a sparkle of black and red. All over him, the fire rolled and Lance was in Love.

Huh.

He was in  _ love _ .

Carefully he made his way over, the world open beneath him, his feet leaving imprints in the snow that spilled at his feet. The world spun and danced but this wasn't like being drunk. This was better than being drunk. This was being alive. This was being one with the world on this visceral level. He could feel his spirit floating, taking over.

Keith was moving already, and he tugged Lance against him when he was within reach. Lance toppled down onto his lap, straddling him and OH. Oh.  _ Oh _ . Keith was fire and he was water.

"You're on fire," Lance murmured, hands on Keith's shoulders. "You're on fire, you're lips are spilling fire, Keith." Keith laughed and it sent embers into the air. They touched Lance's face and made him warm. "Keith,  _ Keith _ —"

"You're so pretty Lance," Keith said, head falling back, his coal eyes looking him over. “You're so beautiful.”

"I know," Lance preened, smiling. "I know—"

Keith laughed again and  _ oh _ Lance would do anything to keep that laugh falling from his lips. "Keith," he said seriously. "Keith, you're on fire."

"Yeah," Keith said. "I  _ know _ ."

"I know, I know,  _ but _ —" Lance melted against him, nuzzling into his neck. "I need the warmth, I need to kiss you, put the fire out with my water, so you don't get hurt.”

Keith snorted and smoke billowed out from his nose. “Sure,” he murmured, curling a hand around the back of Lance’s neck. “ _ Sure _ , kiss me.”

Lance had once read about what it was like when lava met the sea. Kissing Keith was the same, but better. Lance  _ vaporized _ , his whole body screaming with heat and feeling and sensation. He  _ tingled _ where his lips met Keith’s, and Keith smoked and billowed ashe and it mixed with the steam rolling off of Lance, made something beautiful above them, a twisting, churning storm of volcanic explosion.

“Keith,” Lance murmured against his lips. ““I think I love you.”

“I think I love you too,” Keith breathed.

Together, they erupted.

**Author's Note:**

> Please check me out on [tumblr!](melonbugg.tumblr.com) I take VLD prompts! And I love to gush about my writing~

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Rough, Like Coals](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11772468) by [GemmaRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose)




End file.
